"Trentus" wrote in message ...
It would appear that the majority in aus.aviation seem to think this shot
http://www.thedamnedestthing.com/page15.html was moments from impact, but
then they fly the wrong type of aircraft in that newsgroup, so what would
they know.

If not how is it still in the air at that angle? My "hunch" is that it could
be feasible to fly at that angle while towing a load, but it's certainly
just a hunch, my knowledge of physics is high school level, and helicopter
flight knowledge even less.

Trentus

That picture has been around for a long time now and is amazing to
those of us, well at least me!, who fly helicopters for a living. I'm
sure the crew lifted off wondering what it would take to make this
work and had some help on the ground to tell them what was happening
where they couldn't see.
As they pulled pitch and forward cyclic I can only imagine what the
view was in the cockpit and certainly someone was watching the blade
tips to avoid ground contact while they waited to see if the load
would move or not.
There is no doubt in my military mind they were VERY cognizant of what
they were doing. This kind of ranks up there with the USMC flag
raising on Suribachi for dramatic impact.
Before you holler at me...I am an old 10 year active duty Marine and
still stand at attention when the Marine Hymn is played and I've got
more than 21,000 hours of interesting flying.